PS2 BroadBand and PlayOnline Tested

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One kicks ass. One is ass.

By IGN Staff

If you're reading this site, then you've probably figured out that you're one of the 30 million fools who let Sony into your family room under the guise of a games system. As has been made quite clear of late, Sony's plans with the PS2 go beyond games and into that taboo area of the Internet-ready set-top-box.

The system's internet conversion began a couple of weeks back with the first phase of Sony's broadband plans as four key products were released to the Japanese market: Square's Final Fantasy XI, Square's PlayOnline Browser, Sony's Broadband Software and the PS2 Hard Disk masked under the label of the PS2 BroadBand Adapter. If you're in Japan and you're playing Final Fantasy XI, you probably managed to obtain all four of these items.

Be sure and check out our look at the PS2 hard drive elsewhere on the site and our look at Final Fantasy XI in today's headlines. While making our way through a good deal of the FFXI world, we also, without actually choosing to do so, experienced a bit of Sony's Broadband software and PlayOnline. Here are some brief impressions of both products.

We actually wrote up impressions on the Play Online Browser back in our write-up on the FFXI Beta, and not much as changed since then. As noted, the browser feels like an Internet experience that's alltogether different from the kind available for the PC. Picture something similar to the Online side of Sega's Sonic Adventure, although more refined, and you'll have a good idea of what you get with Play Online -- clean graphics, layouts that rival the best web pages around, and high quality sound, all through your television.

Menu screen for Play Online

The PlayOnline browser isn't a general browser for surfing the web and is limited exclusively to Square content. The browser's main menu allows you to view news about Square products and the Square network (server maitentance updates, etc.), access special features such as a comic-strip walkthrough of FFXI and a special site created by composer Noebu Uematsu, and contact customer support. You can also check your @playonline e-mail (send us an e-mail at this PlayOnline address). Alas, our mail box had a few spam mails; can't get away from that, it seems.

Ignoring the spam mail, the browser comes together without a hitch or hiccup, at least through our speedy broadband connections. There were a few points where the software suggested that for a smoother experience we take a few moments to make an initial download before viewing a section of the site, but even without that, Play Online provides a television version of the Internet that stands on its own against surfing through a computer. We hope that more companies will produce high quality console-based browsers for accessing information and news about their products. For a video sample of the PlayOnline browser, turn to the media page at the bottom of this story.

Just an example of the Play Online content

As with the Beta, you use the browser to launch FFXI and, we presume, future Online games from Square. In other words, you don't put your FFXI DVD in the PS2 spindle order to play the game; you instead launch the PlayOnline browser (more on that below), select the games section from the main menu, select FFXI, and begin adventuring. It takes less than a minute thanks to the speediness of the browser. As a side note, you actually only need to insert the FFXI DVD once -- when you first install the game to the PS2 hard disk; following that, you can keep the disk in its case, presumably until your hard disk crashes or some other travesty consumes your PS2.

Unfortunately, in order to launch the PlayOnline Browser you have to go through Sony's currently wretched Broadband software. The broadband software comes packaged with every hard disk that's shipped out from one of Sony's Internet partners (the only way to actually get the hard disk is through the partners). Included in the software are the drivers and installation tools for the hard disk, and a brand new interface for accessing the innards of your PS2.

Startup for the PS2 Broad Band interface

The new interface appears on-screen when you switch on your PS2 without a DVD or a game in the spindle. In terms of content, it's similar to the previous interface, although with a more graphical flair, and with various Internet features. Included are options for viewing movies (currently only DVDs, although we presume downloaded movies will appear here as well in the future), accessing and modifying system settings (time, language, optical-output, and new options such as keyboard and mouse settings), launching games that are on the hard disk or in the spindle (you launch the PlayOnline browser software from here), downloading updates for the software, and testing and modifying your internet settings. These options are set up as a series of "Channels," such as the "Games Channel," the "Movies Channel" and the "Utilities Channel." Since we purchased our hard disk through Internet service provider @nifty, we also have an "@nifty" channel. Our PS2 is now nifty.

Strangely, the software is in its version 0.10 Beta phase only, and it clearly shows. Things are a bit unrefined at this point. In addition to a nearly minute long delay from when you start-up your system to when the "PS2 Broad Band" logo appears (yes, you have to go through this every time you want to play FFXI), the software provides no means of accessing the content on our memory card, or for playing CDs. The software also asks us to check for an update every time we start up; that's horribly annoying. See the media page for a video clip showing how long the startup procedure now takes (warning -- the video is mostly black air, so don't download it unless you've got a speedy connection).

While we're all for Sony's plans to take the PS2 Online (you know, live in our world, play in theirs... or something like that), we'd have liked a choice in being guinea pigs for their experimental software. It's not like they gave us the hard disk for free; we did pay around $160 for the unit. Plus, we're paying (well, we'll be paying eventually) $12.99 a month to play FFXI on top of the $60 we paid for the game. Having to sit through all those delays in order to get the game started doesn't go over very smoothly with us.

Square's software, both through Play Online and (see our impressions elsewhere) Final Fantasy XI are final products that pass our initial tests with flying colors. Sony's software, on the other hand, has a long way to go.